


What Freedom Tastes Like

by Tamminator



Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: F/F, cophine - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-06
Updated: 2017-09-06
Packaged: 2018-12-24 17:11:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12017316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tamminator/pseuds/Tamminator
Summary: The happy ending they'd always deserved. Domestic Cophine fluff, and it's not even AU! Based entirely on Delphine's face when she's holding Helena's baby.





	What Freedom Tastes Like

It didn't take five minutes after they got home from the baby shower for Cosima to guess what her girlfriend was thinking. She could tell exactly what the blonde woman was dying to say but resisting for the sake of her partner. Cosima gave a half smirk and nodded, "Go on, say it."

Delphine smiled meekly, somewhat apologetic for her next words. "I want one." Cosima sighed, and Delphine immediately moved toward her, grabbing her hands earnestly. "But, ma cherie, it isn't important right now, there's absolutely no rush."

Cosima let out a breath she didn't know she was holding and squeezed her girlfriend's hands. "It's fine… I just… god I'm not good at kids."

Delphine's smile warmed and the slight crinkles around her eyes became more prominent. "It's not a discussion. Right now, we focus on curing your sisters." Cosima smiled and kissed her girlfriend lovingly.

\--

It wasn't until her Colombiana sister asked her girlfriend out did it rush to her. It was like a wave of emotions, the entire life she had experienced since meeting Delphine flashed before her eyes in a few seconds, and she realized how much love she felt for her girlfriend… and how easily that love could be taken away. Sure, no one was after them anymore, and a terminal illness was not threatening to take her life at any moment anymore, but so much had changed for her in just a year really. As quickly as it could come she knew it could just as easily be taken away.

Camilla left the examination room, and Cosima quickly hid her face from the forever naive clone, before walking in to see her beloved doctor. They quipped back and forth for a bit, mentioning their plans to next travel to Brazil when Cosima lost her wits. She stared at Delphine, completely focused and taking in every single detail of her. The slight crinkles that had developed in her smile, from stress aging her beyond her years for sure. The long blonde curls reaching past her shoulders, who knows how long it would be if she straightened it again. Those light brown eyes that still twinkled when she looked at Cosima as genuinely as they did when they first met. "What is it, ma cherie?" Delphine asked, snapping the other scientist out of her daze.

Cosima blinked and smiled widely before grabbing Delphine's hands. "Marry me," she says daringly, more of a command than a question, and Delphine's hazel eyes go wide with befuddlement.

She pulls back slightly, shaking her head as if she had misheard. "I'm sorry… q-what?" Cosima noticed how her girlfriend almost fell into her native tongue.

"Marry me," Cosima said again, moving forward as slightly as Delphine pulled back.

Delphine stares wide eyed at here bespectacled love as if looking for some sign of jest. She pulled one hand from Cosima's grasp and ran it anxiously through her golden curls. "Cosima…" she began, sounding breathless, "where did this…" She stopped again and inhaled shakily. "That's so sudden," she settled on.

"Yeah," Cosima agreed, "I don't even have a ring or anything." Delphine chuckles nervously at the confession and runs her hand through her hair once again, but the fact that she didn't let go of Cosima's other hand gave the younger woman confidence. "I was just thinking, how much we've been through, how much I love you… and how quickly that can all be taken away."

Delphine grabbed her other hand once again and pressed, "Cosima-"

"Hold on," Cosima shook her head and looked down, "let me finish." Delphine nodded and squeezed Cosima's hands reassuringly. "I've never loved anyone as much as you, and I never want to be with anyone else… and I know that no one is chasing us anymore and that we have our whole lives to be together…" she sighed and looked up into Delphine's shimmering brown eyes, "but I know what it feels like to lose you, and I never want to feel that way again." Delphine looked like she was about to protest. "I'm not saying this out of fear because I'm done being afraid. I'm done being afraid, and that starts with you. With us." Cosima squeezed Delphine's hands and held them close to her heart. "I'm not afraid of losing you, and I want the whole world to know that despite all the odds we won… we kept it together, and we always will be." Cosima took a deep breath and quirked a smile, "So marry me, Delphine Cormier."

Delphine, smiled brilliantly, those crinkles at her eyes creasing as tears begin to flow from her brown eyes. "Okay," she says, "I will, mon amour." She pulls her shorter girlfriend towards her and kisses her deeply and passionately.

When they finally pull apart they're smiling ear to ear, and Delphine's eyes glimmer with mischief. "You will get me a ring, though, yes?"

Cosima laughed loudly, "Now who's being cheeky?"

\--

"Cos? You with us?" Sarah's sharp voice shook her back to reality.

Cosima smiled at her sister, adjusting the bow tie of her white suit. "Yeah, just…"

"Nervous?" Alison, her bridesmaid-slash-wedding-planner filled in for her. Alison gave her an understanding look, and as the only one of the sisters who had had a wedding before, Cosima assumed she might be familiar with a bit of what's going through her head.

"Everything just happens so fast," Cosima sighed, fidgeting with a loose dread. "I love her, so much. I want to be with her always… but this… a wedding? It feels so formal. So traditional. So…" Though Cosima was wearing a suit, they both had decided to still wear white, and while Felix was officiating, the ceremony was scheduled in the same manner as a regular wedding. Delphine would walk down the aisle to meet Cosima and they would say their vows and I do's, and it would be just that. A wedding. "It doesn't feel like us."

"I agree," said a familiar French accent, and Delphine walked down to the basement where they were waiting to begin. It was a simple backyard wedding in Alison's backyard, with only close friends and family invited. Cosima immediately moved to meet her bride-to-be halfway, and she ignored the anxious expression that made it's way to Alison's face.

"Hey, you okay?" Cosima asked, checking in on her fiancée who, while still beautiful, looked pale as a ghost. She was wearing soft make up that made her glow, and her blonde curls were in a half-up half-down tie with braids crowning her head. Still through all the beauty Cosima could tell she was just as nervous as herself.

Delphine cupped Cosima's face with her hands and smiled warmly. It seemed that just the contact with Cosima brought color back to her face. "Mon amour, je t'aime toujours, and more than anything I want to be with you forever, yours and yours alone, but" she paused, biting her lip as if her next words would break her own heart, "I don't feel like I'm marrying you in this. This doesn't feel like our wedding. This is someone else's dress, and someone else's day, and I'm just borrowing them."

Cosima smiled at Delphine, assuring her that her words were understood. "We should elope," she suggests, sounding more sure of herself than she had all day. "Screw the wedding, right? Let's run to the courthouse, sign the papers, then go home and watch a movie."

Delphine chuckled and ran her hand through Cosima's dreads. "I would love that very much."

Alison cleared her throat and butted in. "I'm sorry, so are you two not getting married?" She looked almost crestfallen by the news.

Sarah wrapped an arm around her more uptight sister and smiled. "Sorry Ali, better luck next time." This did nothing to stop the pout from forming on their purple-haired sister.

\--

They'd been married for two months. Married. Wives. A lifelong partnership. And Delphine couldn't be happier, really. She scrubbed at dirty dishes as her wife lazily switched through tv channels on the couch in their living room. She then saw that vision again, a playpen set up for a child, and she looked down. Delphine has never considered herself much of the domestic type, but she had never really been in the position where it was possible for her. Her childhood was all work and no play, her parents sending her off to boarding school before she'd even stepped into a classroom.

And she learned, everything she could. She was never great at making friends. Most of the girls in her classes were not as eager about science as she was. In college she dabbled around with a few boys, but those relationships were mostly physical and never lasted very long. She finished school and immediately set to work, never looking back. She'd been solidly single for 5 years before she met Cosima, and with one kiss her whole world flipped upside down.

Now she was married, and she had this whole new world to explore. Waking up with the same person beside you every morning, little fights about leaving clothes on the ground when the hamper is right there dammit, or coming home from work to a surprise home-cooked meal. And Delphine found that these were the moments she treasured most, not the grand romantic gestures, but the simple moments of just being with the person she loved.

She set the dishes aside in the drying rack and went over to tuck herself beside her wife. She loved thinking of that. Despite being several inches taller she curled up and rested her face in the crook of Cosima's neck and sighed contentedly. Cosima sighed as well, always happy to have her love beside her and readjusted as to hold Delphine closer to her. "There's nothing good on. You want to pick something?" She asked, setting the remote on her wive's thigh. It was their weeknight routine to enjoy a late night television show before bed, but Delphine simply took the remote in her hands and without looking up pressed the power button. She pulled her arms around Cosima and inhaled deeply, taking in her love's scent. Cosima chuckled, "Oh, is it that kind of night?" she asked cheekily.

Delphine pulled her face back and just looked at Cosima, staring at her sincerely. Her gaze never left Cosima's dark brown eyes. Cosima blushed and ducked her head slightly. "What? What's that look for?" Her smile only grew wider however.

Delphine felt emboldened by desire and said assuredly, "Let's have a baby." Cosima's eyes widened, and it was her turn to be stupefied by a statement. Delphine pressed forward, wrapping her arms tighter around Cosima's waist. "Cosima, mon amour, my life has done nothing but gotten better since I've met you, even when we were not together I always had you in my heart. Our life now, together, has been the happiest time of my life… and I want to continue that with you. I want to take that next step. I want to have children with you."

Cosima took a deep breath, eyes far away, but she still leaned into Delphine, seeking the comfort of her embrace. Delphine willingly sat up and pulled her wife to her chest. The couple sat there in silence for a bit until Cosima's breathing steadied. The brunette slowly wrapped her arms around Delphine and exhaled. "Babe, I… I don't know how to be a parent."

Delphine chuckled, "Neither do I, ma cherie."

Cosima herself chuckled at her own words. "Well, duh," she says under her breath. They'd never been parents before, how would they know how to be mothers. Cosima's mind was flying a mile a minute, every scenario playing through her head. "I'm infertile," she says softly, almost ashamed.

Delphine rubbed her back, acknowledging the pain that followed that line of thought. "But one of your sisters isn't," Delphine whispered to her, offering it as a suggestion. "It wouldn't be the same, but… biologically the baby would be half of you."

Cosima seemed to consider this option but voiced a concern, "The other half… wouldn't be you."

Delphine hummed, considering this as well. "But I would carry it. It would come from me and from you. That's more than good enough for me." Cosima still seemed hesitant so Delphine whispered to her, "You don't have to decide right now. We have all the time in the world." They both knew that wasn't exactly true, but it did help to ease Cosima's mind a bit.

\--

Cosima took a deep breath and held Delphine's hand. They were at the OB-GYN, and her wife was about to be artificially inseminated with her sister's eggs. Delphine squeezed her hand, bringing her back down to earth, and smiled at her. "I'm the one that's going to have the tube inside me; why are you so nervous?"

Cosima gave her a guilty smile and confessed, "It's just… gonna be real when it happens, right?"

Delphine's face softened, and she reached up to cup her wife's face, "We'll be ready," she says assuredly, "We can handle anything."

\--

Nothing and no one could prepare Delphine for labor. None of the lamaze classes or baby books could prepare her for the sensation of labor. " _Merde!_ " she cursed loudly, grinding her teeth so not to scream. Contractions were coming about a minute apart, and it was hardly any time for her to catch her breath in between.

Cosima was beside her, an arm wrapped around her, and another holding her hand tightly. "It's gonna be alright babe, just breathe."

Delphine wasn't sure if she muttered something mean in French or if she just thought it as another contraction made her ears ring. "Cosima!" she yelled furiously, and Cosima winced at the pained voice. "I know how to breathe."

Cosima chuckled at the less-than-threatening breathy words that left her mouth in a shaky voice, and Delphine was almost annoyed if she wasn't so focused on the pain in her lower abdomen. "You asked for this, babe," Cosima says in jest.

Delphine wants to snap at her, but she isn't wrong so she instead grumbles out a, "Tais-toi, s'il te plaît." Cosima chuckled again.

Labor was four hours which was three and a half hours too long frankly, but at the end of the day an exhausted and sweaty Delphine held one of their two kids in her arms. Twins, one boy, one girl. Cosima held the boy, the nervousness she felt when holding Purple at the baby shower so long ago was nowhere to be seen. She smiled at the baby and cooed softly as he slept in her arms. The girl was also asleep in Delphine's arms, and she looked so at peace Delphine couldn't believe that just half an hour ago they were screaming and squirming their way out of her vagina.

Cosima looked up at her the same time she did, and their eyes met. Cosima smiled, a twinkle in her eyes. "You were right," she says softly, "We're ready for this."

Delphine smiled and scooched over slowly to make room in the tiny hospital bed. Cosima carefully climbed in trying not to disturb the baby. Delphine rested her head atop Cosima's and sighed contentedly. "We can handle anything, mon amour."

Cosima nodded slightly and snuggled into her wife. "I love you, Delphine," she said into her neck.

"Je t'aime, Cosima," she says back, and the new family takes a well earned nap.

\--

Three hours. That was approximately how long Cosima had been asleep before a fierce cry had waken her up. She knew that it was Beth who was screaming because by now she could tell the difference between their piercing wails. Still half asleep Cosima walked habitually to the fridge and took out a prepared bottle of breast milk and turned on the bottle warmer. That kid really needed to get on a proper sleeping-feeding schedule, and soon.

As she waited impatiently, sweater clad arms wrapped around her waist, and a warm and familiar body pressed itself against her back. "Bonjour, ma cherie," Delphine whispered into her ear, sending a shiver down her spine. Cosima pressed back into her wife and leaned her head against messy blonde curls. "Thank you for taking care of her this time."

"Yeah, twice in a row," Cosima muttered, but not bitterly, "You owe me one."

She felt Delphine smile against her. "Okay," she says softly, "I owe you."

Cosima switched off the bottle warmer before checking the clock. Five am, far too late to go back to sleep before work. She sighed and made her way to the nursery where Beth was screaming her lungs out. Luckily Scott was a heavy sleeper and could sleep through an earthquake, so Beth's cries went unnoticed by her twin brother. "Hey, Bethy," Cosima mumbled, pulling the little girl from her crib. "That's a mighty wail you got there. You hungry?" She cradles the baby in one arm and presses the bottle to her lips. Beth begins to suckle, harder than she has to and coughs slightly, expecting more of a strain. "Yeah it's not straight from the source, but it's still Mommy's milk," she says, patting her on the back to help her from choking. Beth takes half a bottle before drifting off to sleep once more, and Cosima removes the nub from her daughter's mouth. "Lucky girl; wish I could do that."

Once again arms encompass her, and blonde curls drape across her shoulder. The two mothers stay like this for a while, rocking in unison to keep Beth from waking. "This is everything I've ever wanted with you," Delphine whispered in Cosima's ear.

Cosima turns slightly to glance sideways at her wife. "Now you're just being cheesy," she says in jest.

Delphine's eyes sparkle with mirth, and she whispered, "But you love me."

Cosima stuck out her tongue before leaning down to put Beth back to bed. She turns around and properly wraps her arms around her wife. They press their foreheads together, and Cosima sighs. "I do," she says softly, "I love you so much."

"Je t'aime aussi," Delphine replied before kissing her briskly. After a moment the warm smile turns to one of desire, and Delphine whispers lowly, "Can I make up what I owe you before work?"

Cosima's eyes flicker as well, and she runs her hands down her lover's body. "Only if you'll take care of the kids if you wake them."

Delphine nearly snorted but drew Cosima closer. "Deal," she says before sweeping the brunette off her feet and leading her back to bed.


End file.
